12 days of Clink Street Christmas Event: Review & Guest Post Yana Stajno

 The following authors are participating in this 12 days
of Clink Street Christmas Event.

When old school friends, Angie and Fiona, bump into one
another at a rather drunken timeshare event aboard a barge on the river Thames,
their reunion will prove to be auspicious. Bored with her life, Fiona insists
they both need some excitement. Their marriages have grown stale; their
previous hopes and dreams confined to the top shelf, just out of reach. Both
women crave romance, not a timeshare apartment. Timesharing a lover; now that
would be interesting… Auditions are swiftly convened at London Zoo, with
hopefuls including a language student, an opera singer and a pickpocket. Their
advert also falls into the hands of a young lawyer called Jake, a colleague of
Angie’s solicitor husband on a sperm-ownership case. To make sure they each
play fair, the women create a list of rules by which they will court and enjoy
a man of their mutual choosing. But when has love ever been fair, especially
amongst friends?

Publication Date:	July 16th 2015
Series:	–
Genre:	Women’s Fiction
Pages:	338
Formats:	eBook, Paperback
Available at:	Amazon, Barnes & Noble

When I read the book description of ‘Rules for Thursday
Lovers’ I knew this would be a different kind of book then my usual reads. But
since that was what I was looking for at the moment I decided I really wanted
to give this book a try. And don’t you just love that cover?!

In ‘Rules for Thursday Lovers’ we meet Angie and Fiona,
two old school friends. Both woman are kind of bored and frustrated with their lives.
One alcohol involved evening Angie and Fiona share their stories with each
other and soon a plan is formed. Angie and Fiona will be looking for a lover
they can timeshare. An hilarious journey starts.

To be completely honest, it took me a little while to
really get into this story. I think this was because I needed to get used to
the writing style. Especially in the beginning the story felt a little all over
the place. Not necessarily in a bad way, but I had some trouble figuring out
what was going on. Thankfully I got used to the writing and I could really
start enjoying the story and the characters.

I really enjoyed the friendship between Angie and Fiona.
It was fun to read and really entertaining. There were definitely some really
funny moments which made me want to keep on reading this book till the very
end. The best part for me was reading about how different both Angie and Fiona’s
character were. I found reading about them very entertaining.

The one problem I had with this book was the whole
looking for a lover, while being married part. I don’t understand how people
can do that, and it definitely made me opinionated about this read. I tried to
get past my personal feelings, and although I think I managed to see past it more
than I thought I would, I still feel like I wasn’t completely able to get past
it. And because of that I didn’t love this book as much as I wanted to.

Still, ‘Rules for Thursday Lovers’ is definitely an
enjoyable read. 

St Mary’s bells chimed. Snowflakes dusted the window. A
pigeon hopped along the gutter of roof opposite, then flapped off in the
direction of Tower Bridge. Fiona tied her new Santa piny over her negligee and
headed for the kitchen.

It was strange to have it to herself. Guy had taken most
of his shiny pinging and whirring gadgets and all of his recipe books, so the
room seemed awfully echoey and empty. The oven was only there because he
couldn’t fit it into his small white delivery van.

She lifted the scarf off the bucket. The turkey looked a sickly
bald grey but wouldn’t you, if you’d spent all night in brine? She covered it
up again and made herself a strong coffee. Then she surveyed the table where
Marzena had left the potatoes beautifully peeled and soaking in water. She was much
too talented to be a cleaning lady; she should run the Savoy Grill. The brussel
sprouts were arranged in a pyramid; the carrots and parsnips were laid out in
competing rows like arguments in Fiona’s divorce. And the bandaged Christmas
pudding was ready – for what exactly? Boy, it weighed a ton. She decided to
boil it, plonked it into the top part of double boiler, added water to the
bottom pot and switched the hob on to a low heat.

So, how difficult could cooking a Christmas dinner
be?  She’d wolfed down scores of them in posh
hotels. They’d tasted pretty much the same. All you had to do was roast and
boil everything and fling gravy over it. Easy peasy.

She didn’t actually know how many of her invited guests
were coming. Frederick said he would travel all the way from Greifswald on a
bicycle to see her. So that must count as a ‘yes.’ Hopefully he wouldn’t bring
up his on-going study of British sexual customs in front of Daddy. But then Daddy
had grown deaf and kinder since moving into Vetchlings Old Age Home, so he
might not make a scene. He was making the journey in the Rolls he hid under a
tarpaulin behind the Home’s chicken coop. His man, Derek the crook was driving
it. She was certain he was siphoning off Daddy’s fortune. Daddy liked crooks.
He felt at home with them.

And then there was Angie. Fiona had left messages on her
phone, sent emails and written her a letter. Apologising. Well, sort of.  Angie had to see that ‘love’ and all the
craziness that went with it could not be allowed to stand in the way of a
friendship that went back to childhood.

Fiona rummaged in the cupboard, found the roasting tin,
lifted the turkey out of its watery tomb and tipped it onto the metal. She
found salt, butter and an old jar of herbs with the label so faded she had no
idea what they were. They were powdery green and smelt okay. She slathered the
tepid flesh of the dead bird with salt, butter, herbs and added the contents of
an old bottle of HP sauce for luck. Then she tossed all the vegetables around
it, doused them with lashings of olive oil, covered the pan with foil, placed
it in the oven and switched on a button that said ‘slow roast.’

That was enough cooking for a lifetime. She went
upstairs, drew a bath, filled it with bath salts and sank down to soak out the
week, and, actually, the year. She felt drowsy. She was back at school, cold; the
rain clattered onto the loose roof tiles. She wished she could tiptoe down the
dark corridor to Angie’s dormitory, just to find a little human warmth.

The doorbell woke her. The water was icy. She leapt out,
threw on some leggings and a T-shirt and raced downstairs past the burning smell
to fling open the door.

Daddy stood there, in a suit and tie, flanked by Frederick
with his bicycle on one side, and Derek, the crook, on the other.

‘Oh,’ she said, ‘you’re awfully early.’

Derek gave her his usual steady sneer.

Frederick chained up his bike, wiped his forehead and
grinned. He was exactly as she remembered him – very gingery, sweaty and young.

Daddy scowled. It was directed at the woman climbing off
a moped next to him. She removed her helmet.

Fiona’s heart leapt, but she tried not to show her
excitement. Instead she took hold of the bottle Angie was offering and proffered
a cheek for her to kiss.

‘Lunch isn’t remotely ready,’ she said. ‘But let’s drink
this.’

She turned and walked back into the flat, wondering if
they would follow her into the smoky air and wondering what she would do if
they did.

Born in Zimbabwe and educated in South Africa, Yana
Stajno enjoyed an artistic and eclectic start to life. Graduating in English
and Drama at Cape Town University, Stajno was politically active, joining the
anti-apartheid movement where she met her future husband in the middle of a
riot. Leaving South Africa for a damp squat in Camden Town, she studied
acupuncture and Chinese Medicine before becoming an artist and teacher. Stajno has
written plays including Postcards from the Swamp and short stories Ten Plastic
Roses (published in the Bristol Short Story Prize, 2010) and Flash in the Park
(published by SelfMadeHero, 2012); this is her first novel. Yana can be found
in her artist studio at the Chocolate Factory, Wood Green, where she happily
splashes paint and hosts workshops for children of all ages with the Booster
Cushion company.

For more information about Yana please visit her website. Or visit her on Facebook and Twitter.

I received this book from Authoright in exchange for my honest review.